Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 02/99) - Bompas teachers must be wondering how they will keep abreast of the weather forecast come September without Tom Wilson.

"He always goes on the Internet every morning when he comes to work and he checks the weather," principal Terry Jaffray explained, adding that a skit was performed to that effect at his retirement dinner on June 22.

"He's always telling us what it's supposed to be like, especially in the winter when it's cold and windy..."

The Bompas "weatherman" distinction will no longer reside with Wilson because, after 34 years of teaching -- 19 of them in Fort Simpson, the Grade 6 teacher is calling it a career and retiring.

Barry Church, emcee at the retirement dinner, remembered one time when he came into work early, around 7 a.m., because he had some extra work to do. That early hour proved to be even earlier than when Wilson arrived.

"Geez, Tom came in but he barely talked to me," Church recalled. "I thought, 'This is really weird. Why didn't he talk to me?'"

He decided to go in at the same time the next morning to continue catching up on his work and, sure enough, he found Wilson inside, cordial and chatty. Church said he figured he'd play along and came in earlier and earlier each morning, trying to get in ahead of Wilson again. After bursting through the doors at 6:15 a.m. and still being second, he gave up.

"That was one of his big claims to fame," said Church. "It was pretty funny at the time."

After having a little fun at his expense, his colleagues and the education board staff presented him with a golf package, including new clubs and a membership at the local course.

He will be rather fondly remembered by some of his former pupils as well.

Lisa Thurber-Tsetso, who sat in Wilson's Grade 6 class in the early 1980s, described him as a "relaxed" teacher, but you didn't want to get him mad, she said.

"He let us go pretty easy if we did the work, but if it wasn't done then you were in trouble," she recalled. "It was really nice because he treated us as adults...and he was always fun. He was always making us laugh, joking and treating us as equals. So it was a nice class to go to instead of skipping."

Amanda Wilson, his daughter, said her father is essentially the same man at home as he is on the job -- only perhaps a touch more laid back at home. He was her teacher in Grade 6, but she never really thought much of it, except for one class...

"Grade 6 health, if that isn't bad enough when you're 12 or 13," she joked.

Friday marked Wilson's last day on the job, but his working days aren't through apparently. After about a month's vacation, he said he plans to be fully employed again, but wasn't tipping his hand as to where.

"I keep telling people I'm too young and good looking to retire," he laughed.

His teaching career offered many rewarding experiences, he said, from sitting on a bank near Pangnirtung and watching a right whale move along a cove to seeing his own two children, Amanda and T.G., start school at Bompas elementary and then graduate from Thomas Simpson school.

"The biggest part of it all is having former students tell me how glad they were that I taught them math," he said.

Wilson, who is also renowned for his involvement with TV bingo, said he will continue to volunteer if his new job permits. There's no other community that supports fund-raisers the way this one does, he added.

"I like Fort Simpson...it's the greatest place in the world to raise kids."